Que sera, sera, and all that jazz
by bandtogetherandfight
Summary: Midnight drabble. Rachel wants a sign.


_**Midnight drabble. **_

I.

He calls her the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and asks for a place to crash for a couple of nights.

She's used to people from her past calling her up for favors. It sort of comes with the territory when, at age 19, you starred in one of the most successful Broadway musicals of all time, and now you have this awesome apartment from which you can see Central Park if you lean to the left when you're looking out the bathroom window.

Now, however, she's 24 and back in school, working on her senior year at Columbia. It's right around finals, and she's already blown off Thanksgiving with her family and her boyfriend's family to stay in New York and study.

To say she's not up for visitors is an understatement.

Still, he makes a good case. He has the money - he is the most successful show choir consultant in the Midwest after all - there just aren't any available hotel rooms (Fuck the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade) and he has to be at this audition on Black Friday.

She remembers what that was like; right?

He ends his groveling, which he readily admits he's doing, with "Come on, Rach. Please. We're friends, aren't we?"

No. They're not. But he did send her flowers for the opening night of her musical, and she knows from Shelby that he always asks about her, and wishes her luck on her success.

She tells him that he can have the couch, and warns him that he can't tell anyone. She rationalizes that it's because she doesn't want to start having to host everybody in Lima, but they both know that Finn is the reason that he can't say anything.

Jesse has never quite gotten over her. What's more, Finn knows it. Whenever he and Jesse are around each other, the most recent occasion being Shelby's wedding, there is obvious tension.

Finn has accused her, more than once, of enjoying the attention, but she always manages to pacify him. She's been with him since they were practically children, she emphasizes, and they've stayed together, long distance, through her fame and (small) fortune.

It's not like she's going anywhere.

After one of these arguments, he always kisses her head and tells her that he trusts her and that she would never do anything "like that."

She always cringes, because, though Finn doesn't know it, it's not totally true.

There had been a three-day period, back in her Broadway days, during which the rumors about her and her handsome co-star, Javier, hadn't been completely rumors.

They had never had actual intercourse, but they had come close. More than once.

She had felt guilty about it for a couple of weeks afterward, but had ultimately brushed it off as a one-time thing that had happened because she was caught up in the moment.

It's never happening again.

Jesse arrives around dinner time on Thanksgiving night with takeout and a gift certificate for a spa day as a thank you for putting her through this inconvenience.

She takes a break from studying as they eat, and he tells her about the role that he's up for.

She's surprised that he's made several trips like this in the past few weeks, and that this is going to be the last of four auditions for a revival of Sweeney Todd.

"I told Shelby not to tell you," he adds nonchalantly. "I'm jealous enough that you've already made it without you knowing that I'm jealous."

She full out laughs, because it's so him to be jealous when he's got a successful business, and, according to Shelby, a line of girls wanting to get a piece of him.

Let's just say, he might not be on Broadway, but he hasn't exactly had a hard time in life so far.

Finn calls while she's eating, and Jesse manages to stay quiet throughout the conversation, which includes Finn passing the phone around to his multiple relatives so that she can say hello.

Jesse can only hear one side of the conversation, but she plays it up, making faces and mouthing mocking words to him as all of Finn's relatives chastise her for studying during the holidays, and urge her to come home to Lima.

She promises that she will see them all at Christmas, and says that she just needed alone time to ensure that she made it through her exams in one piece.

Finally, Finn comes back on to say goodbye, and she tells him that she'll work for a couple more hours and then will probably turn in early.

She's not really surprised when that doesn't happen and she and Jesse hang out a bit more. It's actually Jesse that says he has to prep for the audition when she suggests watching one of the movie musicals she usually has to watch alone.

Before he leaves her to her work, he tells her how proud he is of her that she actually went back to school to finish her degree. He'll never admit it, but he's never really forgiven himself for dropping out of UCLA.

He washes the dishes, and puts the kettle on for tea without her even having to ask, finding cookies in the cabinet and bringing them over for dessert.

Finn hasn't spent more than the random long weekend in her apartment, and she's used to having the place to herself. It's strange to her that Jesse seems to fit so effortlessly into her home when Finn always seems out of place in this facet of her life; at once too big and too small for the city that has become her entire world.

Jesse hands her his special noise reducing headphones so that she can study while he runs lines. Even with the headphones, he's distracting, gesticulating wildly with the script and his hands as he talks, but she finds she doesn't mind.

Finally, unable to resist, she closes her laptop and coaches him through the scene. She can tell she's overstepping her bounds with some of her opinions, but he listens to her patiently, and it makes her realize just how much he's grown up, and just how good he probably is at his job.

After a while, they're not even discussing anything remotely related to Jesse's audition, but her sides hurt from laughing so hard.

It's not traditional by a long shot, but it might be the best Thanksgiving she's had in a long while.

She only feels slightly guilty when he starts making his bed on the couch, but he reassures her that it's comfortable, and thanks her again for letting him stay.

II.

The next day, she showers and dresses for another day of studying, and runs into him in the kitchen as he's rummaging through her refrigerator.

"The bathroom is free if you need to shower," she informs him, grabbing the orange juice from the top shelf.

He already showered after his run, he tells her, and she's perplexed because the bathroom was still in immaculate condition when she got in there.

She can't even begin to fathom how many arguments she and Finn have gotten into about how he leaves her apartment. She has serious doubts about them ever being able to successfully live together when he finally makes the move to New York. (Not that she's told him that.)

Jesse won't admit to it, but he's a ball of nervous energy, and she realizes that she won't get any studying done if he's pacing her apartment at warp speed.

Instead, she reminds herself that she has a week before her first exam, and suggests that they go for a walk through the Park.

He's hesitant to impose on her studying, but when she tells him that she hasn't left the apartment in two days, he agrees that she needs to get out.

He pushes her on the swings like they're kids, and she ends up walking him to his audition somewhere near Times Square.

She squeezes his hand in reassurance as he walks in, and he simply says "Thanks for everything" and kisses her on the cheek before they part ways.

When she gets back to the apartment, she feels as nervous as he looked. it takes her a while to place the feeling, but when the thought occurs to her, she knows its true and doesn't need to question it.

The butterflies in her stomach aren't in sympathy for him; they're there because of him.

III.

They offer him the role at the end of his audition, and he walks through her door with a bottle of wine, a bunch of flowers, and a box of chocolate-covered strawberries.

All for her, as if she was the one for whom they had to celebrate.

And, just like that, she knows how the night is going to end before it even starts.

He's high on life ... and wine, because they haven't had dinner, but she is the one that leans over to kiss him first.

He rests the bottle of wine on the couch, which, if she was thinking at all, she would immediately remedy, but whatever, he's a really good kisser.

She can always get red wine stains out of her beige couch... or get a new couch. Either way, she's not worried.

He lifts her up and takes her to the bedroom, and, even though he rests her on the bed, she gets back up to take off her clothes, rolling her socks into a ball before she tosses them into the hamper.

He laughs at her particularity, and it occurs to her that neither of them are truly drunk enough to justify this.

Honestly, she just wants this. And so does he. Is that so bad?

They don't waste much time before he's inside of her, and he positions her, moving her left leg in a way that really works for her and that she has to remember in the future.

He finishes inside of her, and she sighs contentedly before she hears him muttering expletives as he moves off of her.

"God, Rachel. I'm sorry."

Huh?

His unexpected words take her out of her haze, and she shoots him a quizzical glance, but he's not looking at her face.

Okay, so maybe she hadn't had an orgasm, but she knows for a fact that it doesn't always happen, and sex can still be enjoyable and meaningful even if she never does get there.

She's leaning up on her elbows to explain this to him, but he cuts her off with another kiss and a hand between her legs.

He brings her off once with his fingers, then once with his mouth, and when he's inside her for the second time, she's already anticipating the next.

IV.

He leaves the next day after a cup of coffee and a breakfast of chocolate-covered strawberries.

But, before he walks out the door, he turns to her and says the most obvious thing in the world.

"I'm moving to New York."  
>Duh. It's not like the OhioBroadway commute will be doable.

"I know," she responds, and they both know that they're talking about the fact that she has some decisions to make.

"If you're not happy, then why don't you just go be happy?" It's a simple, but loaded question, and she realizes that Jesse had assumed, correctly, what Finn had been so eager to dismiss as the Broadway rumor mill.

Strangely, in this moment, she feels more guilty about that, about Javier, than she's ever felt before.

She doesn't want to make any decisions. She likes the limbo of separate lives in Lima and New York, likes that she and Finn only see each other every couple of months. She likes that she can still be herself because her 'other half' is hundreds of miles away.

But, she doesn't say any of this to Jesse. She also doesn't say what's been on her mind all morning, but she can't bring herself to tell him that she hasn't seen her boyfriend in two months, and she hasn't exactly been taking her birth control as consistently as she should.

It's so unlike her, but it feels right, and she decides to leave the decisions up to fate.

Que sera, sera, and all that jazz.

V.

He's in early rehearsals for Sweeney when she cons the doorman, a fan of hers, to let her into his dressing room about six weeks later.

She hasn't seen him since that morning, and she knows that he has been avoiding her, because he texted her his new address and told her doorman not to mention that he came by looking for a package the theater said they had sent there.

It's why she doesn't expect the smile she gets when he sees her sitting on the vanity in front of the mirror, feet propped up on the stool.

"Hi," she greets him.

"Hi," he says back.

"I'm not pregnant," she tells him evenly.

He's momentarily shocked, but then regains his composure.

"I didn't realize that was a possibility."

She looks down and nods slowly. "It was." She shrugs her shoulders. "I thought it would be a sign."

He seems to understand what she's getting at, and, thankfully, doesn't question her on it. "So what does the fact that you're not pregnant mean?"

"Nothing," she tells him, and she feels him deflate at her response.

"I think the fact that I just spent the last month hoping that I was is the bigger sign."


End file.
